


By Any Other Name

by CuteCat213



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Gender-neutral Reader, M/M, Other, Reader-Insert, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 04:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13850121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuteCat213/pseuds/CuteCat213
Summary: Overdramatic, clingy, crybaby."Call me Ryouta."Funny, warm, joyful."No."Kise Ryouta is all those things, and you wouldn't have him any other way.





	By Any Other Name

"[Y\n]cchi, I'm going to diiiieeee," Kise says and flops backward in true dramatic fashion. (How does he not hurt his head when he does that?)

"No, you're not," you reply and poke him in the middle of his forehead.

"Yes I will."

"No you won't."

"I'm really very certain I will. I'm going to fail this test and then I'll be kicked off the team and then Kasamatsu-sempai is going to murder me. Thus," he pauses dramatically, "DEATH."

"You're not going to die."

He ignores you, throws an arm dramatically over his face. "I would like sunflowers on my grave, please. Wear something lovely to my funeral. As my best friend, it's up to you to give my eulogy."

You smile before you can help it. (Even overdramatic, you wouldn't have him any other way.) "I am but a poor student, how will I afford a dress extravagant enough for your funeral? You would cruelly put me into debt before I even graduate high school?" you lament, giving in to the theatrics of the moment.

He moves his arm to peek up at you and pouts mightily. "[Y\n]cchi is making fun of me."

You hold your forefinger and thumb just a smidge apart. ' _Little bit,'_  you imply without saying anything. "Kise is very funny," you offer graciously in contrast.

In a flash, Kise sits up and faces you. "Ryouta," he says out of nowhere.

You blink in confusion. "Hmm?"

"Call me Ryouta," he elaborates.

You cock your head to the side, considering. You've known each other for years (seven this April). You've slept at each others' houses. You've seen other naked. You straighten up again, look your best friend in the eye, and decisively say, "No."

Kise facefaults on autopilot, catches himself midway, then straightens up and glares in determination. "Yes," he argues.

"No."

"Ryouta."

"Kise."

"Ry-ou-ta."

"Ki-se."

"[Y\n]cchi!" Kise wails.

"Kisecchi!" you reply in kind.

His golden eyes go wide in shock, then narrow. "[Y\n]cchi."

"Kisecchi."

"[Y\n]cchi..." he says warningly. (What is he going to do? Wail and dramatically fall backwards again? Cry on you until you give in? You are immune to Kise-tears.)

"Kisecchi," you reply in the same tone. You can do this all day. (You've already done it for six years and counting and Kise really should know better than to think he can outlast you anymore.)

"[Y\n]cchi doesn't love me anymore!"

 _[Y\n]cchi has loved you since we were ten,_  you think affectionately but don't say out loud. He must see something in your expression that tells him he's not going to get a verbal answer, because he huffs and turns away. (Always so dramatic, Kisecchi.) But there's a smile pulling at his lips in echo of yours, and for the confusion and frustration in his eyes, there is no anger.

"Why don't you call me Ryouta?" he asks, seriously, with no more playfulness in his voice.

You pull your legs up and lean against his shoulder. "I will call you Ryouta if you ask me to, but I hope very much that you won't ask me that."

He turns to look at you with bafflement in every line of his face. "Why not?"

You hum absently, trying to put your feelings into words. Trying to find the words for the feelings. "Because Kurokocchi is Kurokocchi and not Kuroko. Because Aominecchi is Aominecchi and not Aomine. Because Kise is Kise, and not Ryouta." Kise is who smiled at you and held out his hand to help you up when you fell. Kise is who walked with you and talked with you and never looked away from your eyes even when he was surrounded by fangirls.  _Kise_  is your best friend.

Kise is who you fell in love with.

"Kise is... sunshine, warm and bright." A small hand held out to you and a beaming smile that feels like a small sun resting in your chest. "Kise is fun and mischief and hiding in leaf piles in fall. Playing with fireworks on the beach. Kise is safety, curled up together on the couch in a blackout. Kise-"

Kise is an overdramatic wreck as he tackle-hugs you to the ground with a loud 'sniiiff'. But the face above yours is intense in its gentleness and gentle in its intensity and he looks down at you with eyes gone liquid-gold with emotion. "[Y\n]cchi..." he whispers, voice rough.

"Ryouta is new and strange. But Kise..." you trail off. And then, because you can't  _not,_  you lean up and press a small kiss to his cheek, smile up at the gobsmacked expression on his lovely, beloved face. "Kise is mine."

He swallows hard. "Then... [Y\n]cchi is mine?"

From the first, until the last, and every moment in between. "Always."

And then there are lips on yours, soft, gentle, and so,  _so_  warm. It's you, it's Kise, it's everything the two of you together have always been. Sweet and languid like a hot summer afternoon and it feels right, like this. As much as you love Kise, it's not with the burning passion of a thousand stars, it's with the constant, implacable caress of the sun above you.

You can see it in the glittering topaz of his eyes when he pulls away to look at you. You can feel it in the soft, wondering touch of Kise's fingers tracing over your cheek. Not an explosion, not a bonfire, but a kinder warmth to protect you against the cold.

You wrap your arms around his shoulders and trail kisses to his ear. "Daisuki, Kisecchi."

There's a hitch in his breathing, and then he holds you so tight it almost hurts. "Daisuki, [Y\n]cchi."


End file.
